Jakarta Extends Transitional PSBB to January 3

Jakarta Provincial Government announced on Monday (12/21) that it would extend the transitional period of the large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) for another two weeks until January 3, as COVID-19 cases continue to rise in the capital.

I remind again not to leave the house, love your family or relatives from the disease

The city claimed that it was a step in anticipation of a spike in cases due to the Christmas and New Year holidays

Based on the Health Agency's data, the percentage increase in total positive confirmed cases shows an upward trend over the past four weeks. As of December 20, positive confirmed cases in Jakarta reached 163,111, an increase of 13.3% than the previous two weeks from 143,961 on December 6.

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"This has happened significantly since mid-November and is now stable at 13%," disclosed Health Agency Head, Widyastuti, as quoted by Jakarta PPID's pres release, Monday (12/21).

She also explained, the percentage of using daily isolation beds (inpatient rooms) and ICU rooms at 98 COVID-19 Referral hospitals in Jakarta had also increased over the past month. As of December 20, 5,691 out of 6,663 beds were occupied already, which means the capacity had reached 85%. Likewise, the condition of the ICU room where the ICU bed was filled with 722 out of 907 thus the percentage was 80%.

"From Governor's Call number 55/2020, we are committed to increase its capacity to 7,171 isolation beds and 1,020 ICU beds. This is also accompanied by an increase in the quantity and quality of health workers," she added.

Aside that, the average daily positivity rate per month was stable at 9% for the last 3 months, namely 9.6% (October); 9.1% (November), and 9.6% (December). As for the standard safe positivity rate from WHO was below 5%, while the effective reproductive value (Rt), which is an indication of the level of transmission in the community, showed a score of 1.06 as of December 19. The Rt value should be below 1 to control the disease well.

"Then the BNPB says there is a transition of risk from being medium to high, where our score in the previous week was 1.8975 to 1.8025 this week, because of the increase in positive cases and positive cases treated in the hospital," she explained.

Seeing that matters, Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan emphasized that the city's focus on the extension of the transitional period this time was more on controlling population mobility which had the potential to increase cases. Moreover, the mobility of the population returns to Jakarta after the Pilkada and the next period, was namely the New Year holiday.

Cases in Jakarta starting on November 7 had an increasing trend, moreover, some cases had been identified with a history of traveling outside Jakarta during public leave. Even data from Facebook Data for Good, on December 8, (1 day before the pilkada), there was a movement of the population from inside Greater Jakarta to outside Greater Jakarta and it had implications for their return to Greater Jakarta. It might also apply if during the New Year holiday, the community takes vacation and there is potential for infection.

"We'll monitor it to avoid new infections, so it is necessary for us to refrain from having a vacation outside the home or from Jakarta," he asserted.

It was based on the cluster that currently dominated positive cases, where the family and office cluster were still the two largest clusters that had contributed to the additional cases. As of December 7-13, there was an increase in the number of positive cases of 3,821 in the family cluster and 313 cases in the office cluster thus population mobility during New Year holidays would greatly determine the increase in positive cases, especially in the dominating cluster.

Thereby, the local govenment had imolemented extra treatment to prevent a spike in cases due to the New Year holiday. One of them was to issue Governor's Call number 6/2020 on the implementation of control and number 17/2020 on controlling community activities. It was expected to control population mobility during the holiday.

" I remind again not to leave the house, love your family or relatives from the disease ," he stressed.

Child Protection and Empowerment and Population Control (PPAPP) Agency Head Tuty Kusumawati, she urged residents to look for alternative vacation activities at home in addition to vacationing outside the home, such as filling the holiday by cooking with family, taking virtual tours or attending cultural arts festivals that are held virtually.

"So let's invite all parties to present a folk festival or virtual tour that can be enjoyed by all family members even we can insert messages to maintain health protocols thus entertainment can also get messages," she closed.